He pinned me against wall & said ‘Come on Gay, you know you want it...’

Jockey Club staff yards Harassment included away from appalling ordeal naked rider & hotel visits

would be enough to push someone, especially fragile girls, to suicide.

“I got harassed so much, people have no idea what sort of a tough time I had. It was horrible.

“I just wished they would leave me alone. All I wanted was to do my job to the best of my ability.”

The daughter of top National Hunt jockey Paul Kelleway, Gay was destined to spend her life working with horses.

She made history by becoming the first – and still only – woman to ride a winner at Royal Ascot when Sprowston Boy landed the Queen Alexandra Stakes in 1987.

Gay rode her first winner at 17 and was leading professional female rider three years in a row. But her success over male colleagues triggered sexist mocking.

She said: “They used to take the mickey a lot. Every time I beat a [male] jockey, especially a top one, the response was the same: ‘Ah, you got beaten by a girl.’ It was unheard of, and they didn’t like it.”

But there was a more sinister response to Gay’s “intrusion” into the testosterone-fuelled atmosphere of the weighing room.

She became a target for physical abuse, including the sexually motivated assault by a “senior jockey” yards from officials from the Jockey Club, which ceded control of racing to the now British Horseracing Authority in 1993. Recalling her ordeal, at a time when female

THE Harvey Weinstein scandal has at its centre a man only too happy to abuse the privilege of power.

The parallels between Hollywood and horseracing are striking.

At the bottom of the food chain are the aspiring young actors or jockeys. They are eager for the chance to shine. But the granting of riders did not have a designated changing room, Gay said: “I’ll never forget it, I was getting changed.

“I was in the changing room at Leicester and a senior jockey walked in and pinned me up against the wall. There were stewards around.

“[He said] ‘Come on, Gay, come on, you know you want it.’ I said, ‘No, I don’t’. I said, ‘I’ll scream.’

“[He said] ‘No one will hear you.’ I kneed him in the groin. He left then.” Recounting another episode, Gay went on: “I used to go and use a top jockey’s sauna.

“My dad arranged it and I was quite friendly with his girlfriend. I drove over to the house and I was sat in there with my swimming that big break is in the gift of those at the top of the pyramid.

In over 25 years working in the horseracing industry, I’ve met hundreds of would-be star-makers. And I’m in no doubt that all bar a